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PSXE Poll Update: Removing Taliban From MoH Cowardly

Although it was close, the majority of our readers believes EA's removal of the Taliban reference in the multiplayer action in Medal of Honor was just plain cowardly.

As most of you know, EA buckled under the pressure - applied by various members of the U.S. Military and offended families of U.S. soldiers - and decided to take "Taliban" out and replace it with "opposing force." But according to our latest poll, most of you guys think EA should've stuck to their guns and released the game as was, which may not have been a solid business plan. Actually, and perhaps surprisingly, the second-highest vote tally went to the indifferent crowd, who really don't care one way another. We interpret this in the following way: unlike the anti-gaming hounds out there, we realize that just because we play as the Taliban in a video game, we're not necessarily besmirching any memories...as it ain't real. There are two sides in multiplayer matches and...well, someone needs to play as the bad guys. Nobody freaked out when we played as Nazis in other shooters, right? Or cowboys and indians when we were kids?

This week, we leave the politics and controversy behind and refocus on gaming. We're interested to know what you'd rather have from Rockstar: Grand Theft Auto V or another Red Dead? We're almost certain to get both, but which excites you more? We keep thinking the recent popularity of RDR might have had a pretty big impact...

Comments (69 posts)

Meh, i dont really care either way. Some people are going to bi*** no matter what you do so you might as well do what you want anyway.

In regards to the new poll....
I'd be off the wall ecstatic for GTAV if it is a sequel to Vice City, but not if its another modern GTA. Vice City was by far the best GTA ever made and i'd by another 80s GTA in an instant.

Very ture, impossible to please everybody. As far as a new GTAIV vs. a new RDR.. well for me the answer is simple, we've seen quite a lot of GTA's in the past, granted they're amazing games but I would certainly be more interested in a new RDR. Maybe I'm just a sucker for westerns or it could have been the remarkable story and that last look John Marston's son gave the camera right at the very end.

I have family and friends in the army. Older and past relatives who were in WWII (whom I NEVER played WWII games in front of, ESPECIALLY as a Nazi!!!), and I have friends and family currently in Afghanistan. I and at least 2 of my buddies couldn't give two craps what MoH did in the game. And that's how I voted too. Wouldn't have cared either way. Even now, they're still Taliban, whether they call it that or not. People will be playing multiplayer online saying "we're the taliban", and "shoot the taliban *$&%#&".

Of course, we aren't American either. 1 of my army friends, just this past weekend in fact, said "I don't give a f*&k what they call them. It's a f*&kin' game."

P.s. He's in therapy right now for post-traumatic syndrome from what he's seen overseas.

But not that that matters, right? "It's disrespectful!" So tell me, how soon is too soon? I mean, Black Ops is Vietnam... lots of games have been WWII... I don't care what anyone says. Both of those wars were worse than what is happening now. (I do not mean to detract from what's going on now. All war is bad, for sure.) But just because it's more "modern" or "current", we're not allowed to be the bad guys? But if it isn't something that happened to this generation, it's ok??? Yeah... whatever.

No no, the best gta were gra:sa. What is there NOT to love in that game. It even got a 80s radio channel for you 80s guys. Plus the best radio channel ever, the electronic one with that german crazy dude.

AND you got a rocket backpack ffs! What is there NOT to love about SA...!

The atmosphere in SA wasnt nearly as immersive as VC. VC just oozed 80 cliche and pop culture references. SA had a ton of boring side-missions like GTAIV while VC kept a good balance of main story and side-missions.Theres no mission in SA that comes close to the epic feeling of taking the mansion in VC. Half of the new stuff in SA was just the dress-up mode. If i wanted to play dolls i wouldnt have bought GTA, just give me the option of a suit, fatigues, or civilian clothes. I dont need or want to sift through 80 different boots.

Ah, the mansion in VC... I'd forgotten about that one. I agree, that was a definitive highlight.

But the "boring" side missions (I guess you are referring to the girlfriends?) are just that, side missions. No need to do them. I on the other hand found them to be quite cool, they added to the rpg'ish feeling of SA, something I thought was a definitive step in the right direction. I expected more of that in GTA IV. The horrible interface to change clothes on the other hand, there was a definitive room for improvement there. They could (and should!) have done so in gta iv. But nah.

In my opinion gta:sa added a lot to the formula without removing anything essential (as opposed to gtaiv). We got planes! Casinos! Car modding! Even body modding! Plus the huuuge map with tons of stuff to do made it de definitive king-of-the-gta-hill so far.

I understand why EA felt they needed to change the name but it doesn't change anything. The game is still banned from military bases, the Taliban are still murderous scum and our brave men and woman are still fighting them.

Political Correctness= Fail.

In regards to the new poll, i'd rather see another Red Dead because i never liked GTA. The game is classless and is a waste of time and money in my opinion.Last edited by Jawknee on 10/10/2010 11:30:52 PM

Weeeeeelllll, this wasn't a big deal. If a game doesn't get made (ahem Six days) then I think we've all gone too far. Jawk is correct though, it doesn't change a thing. I thought it was an okay idea just to placated the idiots. Sometimes you gotta do that.

As far as R* is concerned, I dug GTAIV, am still playing RDR, but honestly, I'm fairly tired of the mechanic so I voted not interested. I wan't LA Noire and I wanna hear about Agent, but GTA is old news and while I like westerns, there is a WHOLE lot of nothing out there in the wilderness. I liked the way Red Dead Revolver did it better.

I don't really consider it cowardly, myself. They were basically caught by surprise with regards to the backlash of the Taliban being in the game. They moved to attempt to assuage the issue by removing the Taliban (let's face it, we as the forum going/blog reading gaming community aren't the majority when it comes to gaming...so our feelings are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things), and are now caught in the prized position of 'Damned if you do, damned if you don't."

I respect them for making the alteration, based upon response from families of victims of the war, sure the game is for gamers, but it does touch on pretty sensitive issues that we should acknowledge, even if they aren't sensitive to you or me. At least they tried.

As for the new poll, I've got GTAIV + Expansions on my PC, love them. I've got RDR for PS3, currently conquering it, love it. I would be lying if I said I don't want both, and I'm not lying when I say I want them both on PC. ;)

MoH's quality won't suffer for this... but because of this, it give jackasses like jack thompson fuel to keep his self-proclaimed, dimly lit fire burning.i have respect for our men and women currently fighting in afghanistan. they have the courage to attempt to do what other countries could not.as 4 a new GTA or RDR... i personally want a new red dead game.

Jawknee,I figured you were joking, but if that a$$wipe ever were to own a PS3, I can just about guarantee that he only bought so he could sweat to the oldies by crotch-watching Richard Simmons on HiDef Bluray.

Ha, if he really was a gamer, then this whole publicity whore grandstanding against MOH, would not have happened, disbarring any tirade against freedom.

BTW, I voted for both R* titles, but just bring on GTA 5 first, seeing how RRD is still fairly new & Grand Theft is already last years model.Last edited by BikerSaint on 10/11/2010 2:29:57 AM

from a sales perspective they did the right thing, from a industry perspective yeah it was cowardly, they should of stood their ground but i can understand why they buckled.at the end of the day you have to remember EA are in this for one reason, and only one reason.to bring in as much $ as possible, there not going to handicap themselves deliberately.

as for RDR2 or GTAV, well that depends.if GTAV would be another "sim" a repeat of GTAIV than i NEVER want to see another GTA game ever again!if it was going to take the series back to what made it so popular, aka mindless fun than id much rather GTAV over RDR2.but either way, id much rather R* get off their fat a$$e$ stop announcing games and show us some new stuff on either agent, LA Noire or max payne 3.

i thought you were suppose to announce a game, show info on it,release it, than announce a new game.not announce a game, show nothing on said game, announce another game, show nothing on said game, than announce another game, show nothing on said game, than maybe show some info on original game.all in the process of releasing NEITHER of them!god, who do they think they are, $E?

I want to see R*'s other games before either of those, but if I had to choose, I'd go a new GTA (I still refuse to refer to it as GTAV). The story leap they made from PS2 to PS3, as well as the feeling of Episodes, and the out-of-mission fun of RDR should be enough for R* to pull something worthy of a perfect ten out of their hat. But I wouldn't be averse to a new Red Dead either.
Peace.

Jawknee, EA removing the taliban have nothing to with being politically correct, however the removal is clearly a business decision.

Any for those complaining about EA removing the taliban, alot of you seem to forget that EA is running a business and being so they aren't going to include material they know will haper their game sales.

Anyhow personally I don't care about games such as MOH(or the controversey surrounding it) because in the end games such and MOH(and COD) do nothing but glorify the american warfare state and militarism. In the end the end I sometimes wish people who play these games would stop think about the amount people killed by the american war machine.

Now before somebody begin to question my socio-political stance, take not, I'm neither democrat or republican, this when you consider both are the two-headed war parties.Last edited by A2K78 on 10/11/2010 3:48:54 AM

And of course it's PC. they are hiding the truth of who our enemy is so not to offend. That's PC. And I don't care what party you belong to or don't belong too. You believe nonsense like the "Taliban and Al Qaeda were created by the CIA". If you actually new or cared about REAL history you would know thats a bunch of hog wash made up my American hating leftists like Noam Chomsky. So your opinion on the subject matters little to me since it's obvious you know so little.Last edited by Jawknee on 10/11/2010 12:05:15 PM

The Taliban thing.. It seemed like a business move to me. However, I can't see how people would now think "it's ok" to buy a game that "was going to have" Taliban. They were obviously still not buying it.

And regarding the new poll, I'm tired of GTA games. Unless the setting changed drastically, I don't think I'd even buy a new GTA.RDR2 all the way.Last edited by wolfsinner on 10/11/2010 6:50:31 AM

Don't forget, MoH has to play nice with the military. They relied heavily on them to make this game. So, while deleting the Taliban name might not of increased their sales this offering, they will need the government for the next installment.

True, true. But the next gta gotta be more entertaining than iv. They gotta see their faults themselves.Actually I think they prove that they've done so with rdr. So I welcome a new gta with open arms, however *not* a day1 buy.Last edited by Beamboom on 10/11/2010 2:33:42 PM

It's highly rated because it was released at the early stages of this generation and because of the excitement that caused the leap from PS2 to PS3, everybody thought it was awesome, blah, blah, blah...

BUT MGS4 was released somewhere near the same time frame and we truly got to see what the PS3 was capable of...

And on a personal note, I think it was overrated, San Andreas, Vice City and III had better stories, better character development and better sidekicks...

Have you ever tried the multiplayer trophy hunt for GTAIV?? It's not fun, feels like a chore...Last edited by McClane on 10/11/2010 4:34:51 PM

No no no!!! Remake the game in hd with the same ragdoll effect people have in GTA4 when they die and the same online multiplayer experience. Loved riding my hippy-van of the massive mountin to see how many flips I could do before I bailed, jumped out of the van with a parachute and watch it plummet to the ground and blow up, landed then spawned a harrier to fly away in to go over to las venturas to steal sports cars and dive full speed, running 20+ people over every 5 seconds. Evil but fun.

For those who liked GTA4, you have got to check out this awesome fan-made episode....

In this feature film, a salesman (who happens to be a biker) wants to sell his goods to the various citizens of Liberty City to feed his striving family. However, when a mafia boss refuses his offer of his goods, the boss ends up sleeping with the fishes, brought down by the salesman's hand.

As the salesman goes about his business, including a random encounter with his clone(s), the mafia hires a hitman to take him out. During this ferocious chain of events, a fellow Liberty City police officer gets involved with the mess, adding insult to injury.